The Damned Ones

By Chris Miller

Twenty-six years after The Damned Place, Jim Dalton is now chief of police in the formerly sleepy town of Winnsboro, where a series of brutal murders leads him to believe something insidious is lurking just beneath the surface.

As he meets with his childhood friends, the scope of what they hoped was left behind in the woods all those years ago begins to come into focus, and they realize they are once more all that stands in the way of a hungry beast from outside of reality and global destruction.

Ours isn’t the first world The Glutton has devoured, and if Jim and his friends can’t find the key to destroying it, it won’t be the last. THE DAMNED PLACE left its stain, and now mankind’s only hope rests within THE DAMNED ONES.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Bed Sheet Books
• Release date: Jan 20, 2020

Chris Miller

Chris Miller is Assistant Professor of International History at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He also serves as Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Eurasia Director at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and as a Director at Greenmantle, a New York and London-based macroeconomic and geopolitical consultancy. He is the author of three previous books—Putinomics,The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy, and We Shall Be Masters—and he frequently writes for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The American Interest, and other outlets. He received a PhD in history from Yale University and a BA in history from Harvard University. Visit his website at ChristopherMiller.net and follow him on Twitter @CRMiller1.   

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PART ONE:

Bad Seeds

Thursday, August 4, 2016

Chapter One

Norman Reese clenched his fists.

His head was throbbing again. Another migraine. He was getting them all the time now, but he refused to take Doc Horton seriously on the matter and follow up with an MRI and bloodwork. The mass in his brain had been discovered when Norman had collapsed while in line at the bank a few months back. He’d been having one of those headaches like he was now, intense and all-encompassing about his skull, and the world had simply winked out for a while. His cranium had cracked hard on the marble floor, the skin splitting and oozing a lake of nearly black blood around him like a satanic halo. The doctors had been reasonably sure nothing had been fractured, but wanted to be sure.

But Norman had refused to accept what they’d discovered on the X-ray. He was a man of God, he’d informed the doctor, and men of God had their faith tested from time to time. That was all this was, and he wasn’t about to dismiss his faith over some black spot in an X-ray. Even when the doctor had pointed out that the tumor was in all likelihood the source of his severe headaches, he’d scoffed at them. It was probably just too much sugar, he’d told them as he’d left the doctor’s office. Too much soda. Too much caffeine, or maybe even not enough of it. Something like that. Men of God didn’t succumb to cancer.

Norman hadn’t been interested in discussing his theological conclusions when the doctor had told him God had nothing to do with whether people got cancer or not, and had finally renlented, urging him a final time to follow up with the specialists and writing him a prescription to deal with the migraines. They were merely putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound, he’d explained, but handed over the script anyway.

For the pills to be effective, Norman had to remember to keep them with him at all times and to take them as soon as he felt one of the skull crushers coming on. His thoughts usually a scattered mess these days, he often forgot to bring the pills with him, and once one of the migraines set in, the pills were useless anyway. Still, he cursed himself for not remembering them.

Norman had a hard time remembering what he was supposed to do. His sense of direction in life had never been well focused, always relying on his mother’s conversations with God to inform him of his great and mighty purpose. God had yet to speak to him on the matter, however, his mother had informed him that it was because he was her boy, entrusted to her to raise and guide. That was why God informed Norman of his great calling through her. The great, magnificent calling on his life to lead God back into a godless world.

But it hadn’t happened yet, and he was pretty sure it should have, certainly by now. Norman was thirty-six years old, and if he were going to lead this divine charge, the Almighty had better get a move on or Norman would be too old to be of much good. Even his mother’s rebuttals pointing to the ages of Abraham and Moses when their callings had come—much later in their lives than he was in his own—were starting to become a point of doubt within him.

Focus had become a fleeting thing for Norman. Even more so of late, as his life had begun yawing out of control. Not all aspects, of course, but one in particular which he could not let alone. Not when the Almighty had told him—personally this time, not through his mother—what was to be. This absolute and inerrant word from the Lord Norman had received was that his girlfriend—ex girlfriend now, though he’d yet to admit such—was supposed to marry him. It was God’s will. His plan for her life. A man who was going to lead God back into a world from which deity seemed quite absent would need a good woman by his side for support, advisement, and—most importantly—to keep his ball-sack empty.

Only, she hadn’t seen things quite the same way, which had led to their falling out and, ultimately, to this moment, to this late night visit to her home with his pounding headache turning into a migraine, palms ready to bleed from the pressure of his nails and a seemingly endless shudder rippling through every part of his body.

The silly cunt—Jesus forgive him—was denying God’s will.

He stood next to the curb in front of Margie Johnson’s house on Ward Street. It was just off the southern length of Mitchell Street, not on the corner but very near where it met Mitchell, and save for a sodium vapor street lamp at the far end, it was dark and quiet. He tried to control his breathing, which was becoming labored with anticipation, but his breaths continued to hitch out of despite his efforts. It was quite late—close to midnight, in fact—but Norman didn’t bother to check his watch. He knew it was late. He had been working up to this moment for some time now. Several days, in fact. It had only been when he’d reassured himself with what God had told him that he’d finally decided it was time. Time to confront Margie about her dissent to the Almighty’s will, no matter how late it was.

He was staring at Margie’s front door.

Margie and he had been in a relationship for almost six months. She was a youth-worker at Revival Rock Ministries, the church Norman’s parents had started more than two-decades before. It was a small, non-denominational affair, situated on the south-eastern edge of town. Norman was the worship-leader, playing the rhythm guitar and singing in his nasal, huffy voice which seemed popular for the modern worship style these days, especially to the indiscriminate ear of the average congregant. The more you sounded like you had a cold, the better it was received, it seemed. Repeat the same three or four chords and a few lines about how Jesus loves you—or you loved Him, either angle worked with equal measure—and people would line up before you at the ‘altar’. That was merely what they called it, ‘altar’, but it was no such thing. It was a stage. But, they would raise their hands and weep and fall to the floor in swoons of feigned—or were they?—adoration.

Whatever it was, it was powerful to Norman.

His father, George, was the pastor. George Reese had founded the church in the fall of 1988 after a falling out with the church they had been attending at the time, another non-denominational church by the name of Faith Creek. Funnily enough, there had been no creek anywhere near the church, never mind the fact it sat on an urban lot on Elm Street. It was just something that sounded nice and fit with the imagery of their logo, which depicted a stick-person dunking another stick-person into a creek in baptism. There was even a stick fish to witness the event with an obscene, aquatic grin. This church had been another small affair, almost identical to what George would later create for himself in obedience to the voice of God he had heard at the time of the split with the creekless Faith Creek.

George and Cherry Reese founded Revival Rock within a week of the split, a result of the dissolution of the elder’s board at Faith Creek and the pastor there refusing to allow church governance to be attended to, or overseen by, anyone other than himself.

And God, of course.

So, the Reeses had started Revival Rock in their living room, and within a few months their membership had outgrown the small space and they had rented a small building on the Eastern length of Highway 515, just barely inside the city limits. They’d stayed there for a year or so, and finally bought a barn which used to belong to the city at the rodeo grounds near the town’s community center. It was there they had set up shop—the potent scent of horse manure an ever-present reminder of their location—and still remained to this day. They’d rebuilt the interior to accommodate a sanctuary and fellowship hall, along with a few offices and a foyer, all with the help of volunteers from their humble congregation, and they had ebbed and flowed ever since.

There’d been yet another dissolution of an elder’s board not long after their barn had been christened, this time at Revival Rock Ministries, but of course this was an altogether different affair because this time God Himself had spoken to George. It wasn’t anything like the pastor at Faith Creek, who’d been out of line and totally out of control. No, this was completely different. And what was the reason it was different?

Because.

"I’ve got plans for this house of worship," God had said to George. And these men on the board are not hearing from me! They are hearing from the enemy! Be gone with them, and let me build my house upon this soil!

And so George had.

There had been yet another split, but this time no one had gone and started another church. They’d simply spread out and found homes at one of the three Baptist churches, the Church of Christ, the Methodist church, the Pentecostal church, some converted to Catholicism, and a few even went back to Faith Creek. Others simply gave up on the whole religious game altogether.

And, of course, the Reeses knew—again, because—all of those other churches had it completely wrong. Yes, God had spoken to George about how wrong everyone else had things and had told him how to set it right. But even more than he, God had spoken to his wife, Cherry. It wasn’t just that their church had it right, but that they had it right. Them. Their family. And God was going to raise up their family to save His church from the apostates and heretics, and it would be their boy who brought about the great revival.

Norman had started strumming at the guitar when he was around ten years old, and had never really progressed beyond that, contrary to the ravings of Cherry Reese about how amazing he was and what a great gift of talent had been bestowed upon him by God. His three-or-four-chord progressions were absolutely inspired by Christ Himself, she had proclaimed at their services—and more than once—as often as she could get the microphone from her husband. Which was fairly often. Her child was the one God was going to use to change the world. To bring God back into a godless world. She spoke of him as a near deity, as though Christ’s return would occur in and through her boy as he strummed at the guitar.

And wouldn’t it be? Why not?

But, despite his pitiful musicianship and his utterly narcissistic personality—an endowment granted to him by his mother through her years of worship to him—Norman had managed to woo Margie, and the pair had begun dating some months back. Margie had not thought Norman was the second coming of Christ that his mother was so convinced of, which was a bit of a problem, though one Norman had been sure he would rectify in time. She had liked him well enough, though. Even thought she might fall in love with him, as she’d told him only a month prior. She’d told him how kind he could be, and he had a great big smile that, when he was being genuine, warmed her soul. She hadn’t been terribly attracted to him physically, however, a revelation which Norman couldn’t believe, nor could he understand her need to tell him so. She simply had to be blind, he’d concluded, and had vowed to purchase her a pair of glasses once he got her sorted out in her spiritual life.

He was a tall man, about six foot two, and had sandy-blond hair above blue eyes. His teeth had been in braces from fourteen to sixteen years of age, but they seemed to have forgotten their barred imprisonment as they’d had no lasting effect at all. His teeth had managed to become crooked again and to overlap one another through the years, and no one would ever know an orthodontist had ever looked at his mouth. Norman was also very skinny—lanky, really—but had virtually no muscle definition anywhere on his body, even though he was reasonably strong. Stronger than a woman, anyway. He wore glasses most of the time, but Margie had thought his choice in eyewear was pretentious and rather hipster. She couldn’t stand hipsters, so Norman began wearing contacts.

But, nonetheless, she’d begun to love him. Or so she’d said. He was kind to her, had bought her flowers and showered her with gifts. He had even written her a song.

It was in the same three-or-four-chord progression that all of the contemporary Christian songs he led on Sunday mornings were in, but she hadn’t minded. She hadn’t even minded that the lyrics could have been plucked straight from the shallowest of those in the modern worship music repertoire. All you had to do was replace her with God and you had another song for Sunday mornings. A shitty one, but...

It was sweet.

Then Norman had not only brought up, but had been adamant about, the fact that God had said they were to be married and Margie had simply not felt the same way. Not yet, anyway. It was something she was praying about, waiting to hear from God on, she’d said. But she hadn’t yet. As a matter of fact, she had begun to think that he was simply not the one God had for her at all.

And finally, she had broken it off.

Norman simply wouldn’t accept it. Couldn’t accept it. He’d told her that God had said otherwise, and he would wait for her to hear from Him properly. There was simply no way that what she was hearing could be from God, because he’d heard the precise opposite. And he knew, from years and years of his mother explaining to him how special he was in God’s eyes, what great plans God had for him, that there was simply no way he was wrong.

No, it was she who was wrong. There was no doubt. Women often heard wrong from the Lord and needed the men in their lives to set them on the right track. Well, most women, anyway. His mother seemed to have a most masculine intimacy with the Almighty that was typically reserved for the males of the species. But his mother was an anomaly, not the norm.

It had been a full two weeks since she had broken things off with Norman. He’d let her have her time and pleaded with God to pull the wool from her eyes so she could see she was simply being silly and stupid. Like most women were. That was why they needed men. So they could see things clearly. See things the way God intended them to be seen.

But his phone call earlier in the evening had indicated she was still resisting God’s will. She would require a face to face meeting, and Norman had decided the time was now. A face to face reckoning with the man God had set aside for her. The one she was supposed to marry and submit to. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but it was necessary. She was going to see things his way.

God’s way.

Norman looked up and down Ward Street and saw no one. Didn’t even see any lights on. There was nothing. The stars shone above the streetlamp at the far corner, which buzzed with the sound of electricity and the hum of moths.

He stepped up on her yard.

He made his way to her front door at an even pace. His head throbbed and ached. His fists clenched. He thought again of how Margie had broken things off with him. Over the phone. In a text message, no less. Sure, she’d spoken of it a few times with him in person, but she was so clearly out of God’s will that he’d dismissed her completely. It was a man’s job to direct his woman in the way she should go, and she was obviously going outside of God’s will. Norman would set her straight.

But then she had sent the text message and asked him not to contact her anymore. She’d even stepped down from the youth-worker position she’d held at the church for several years, which had infuriated him.

You fucking bitch—Jesus forgive me, he thought. Who are you to buck God’s will?

He got to her door. He thought he heard a shower turn off inside, and he blinked. When he thought of the shower, he thought of her naked. Not that he’d ever had occasion to see her naked, but he had to admit, to his shame, that he’d thought of it several times. Had even succumbed to touching himself to the thoughts, though he’d been sure to scourge himself with his knotted rope afterward.

God had forgiven him.

Still, he felt that firmness in his loins spring up as he stood there. Springing up like a cuckoo clock.

Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

He knocked on the door.

He had no idea what he was going to say to her when she answered. He had no idea whatsoever. Maybe he would start with ‘hi’. Maybe a ‘how’s it going, Marg’? But he would say something. She needed to hear the will of God.

Hey, so you heard from God yet? You get your shit together yet, Jesus forgive me?

Somewhere inside he heard a voice. Her voice.

Just a minute!

He imagined her again, naked, beads of water dripping from her pink flesh, pulling on a towel. He wondered if she had hair down there or if she was one of those modern women who shaved it. If she was, she was surely a whore. Only a whore would shave away the natural, protective fur God had given to every man and woman. Only a whore would do that. Why else would you shave it? It was only to please men. Other men. Men who didn’t understand how God intended sex to be. Man and wife. Only.

There were footsteps within the house. His head throbbed. His fists clenched. The knuckles were turning white and the nails on his fingers were drawing blood from his palms.

Norman was hardly aware of any of this.

Just a second, I’m coming! he heard her say.

Then she opened the door.

She was standing there, her reddish-brown hair soaked and brushed back, her body covered loosely in a towel. It barely reached beyond her crotch. Norman stared at her stupidly, his face a rictus of confused astonishment.

Why on earth would she DARE answer the door in such a manner?

She was certainly a whore.

Norman’s fist lashed out in a blur, smashing into her face. There was a crunching sound as her nose broke and a jet of blood began to pour from her crumpled cartilage in sheets. She chirped a groan of pain as her head jerked back and she stumbled backwards into the living room in an awkward gait.

Norman stepped in and slammed the door behind him, glaring down at her. He was as furious as he was confused. His lips quivered into a snarl, his eyes still stupidly confused.

How dare she answer the door so inappropriately, he thought. Is she really such a whore? Why does God want me to marry a whore? I’m not fucking Hosea—Jesus forgive me!

Her awkward stumble reached its climax when her feet twisted up and she collapsed to the floor, her towel falling free from her body, exposing her breasts and everything else in all their glory to Norman for the first time. Her jubblies—Jesus forgive him—were plump and round and perky. He felt himself harden even more. Then he noticed something else. Something which crawled up from his belly with such horror that, for a moment, he was sure he would cry out in terror.

Her crotch was shaved.

It almost glistened in the artificial light from the ceiling fan. Pink and proud. Maybe she’d been giving it a fresh haircut in the shower as he’d been on his way over. It sure looked slick enough. But for who? Certainly it wasn’t for him, the one God had set aside for her. The apostate bitch—Jesus forgive him—was seeing someone else.

So she really is a whore, he thought. How could God have let me believe this harlot was the one for me if she’s such a whore?

She started to sit up as he entered the room and she began grasping for the towel to cover her nakedness. Norman reached down and snatched the towel away from her and flung it to the door behind him where it crumpled into a heap.

Why cover yourself now, you slut! he barked at her.

She was terrified. He could read it on her features. It was all over her face, dripping from it like the beads of water in her hair.

I take it you haven’t been listening to our Lord? he bellowed at her, continuing. "But then, how could you hear from him when you’re so steeped in...in...sin?"

His arms had begun to whirl through the air as he was talking, and Margie’s lips began to tremble. She feebly tried to cover her body with her arms and crossed her legs, fidgeting nervously as he glowered over her. Finally, she managed to speak for the first time since Norman had ruined her nose.

N-Norman, her voice wavered. Norman, please! I’m sorry about everything, I, I...

She trailed off.

It was clear to Norman that she’d lost the words to say because she was so clearly, so blatantly outside of God’s will. But with her shaved pussy—Jesus forgive him—gaping up at him despite her efforts to conceal it, it was abundantly obvious she’d strayed too far from God’s grace to be reconciled now. His wrath would surely befall her.

Margie managed to stand and turn from him, attempting to run. Her bare ass cheeks clenched and flexed as she did, a vertical mouth with lips drawn into a tight line. Mocking him. His loins ached and he wasn’t sure his pants would hold. Fury rose inside of him like a ball of nuclear flame and he kicked her in her ass hard as she started to flee. Margie sailed forward and began to fall. As she went down, her temple struck the corner of the coffee table in the center of the room with a crunch, and the table scooted away, the wood on wood chirp singing as the legs of the table squealed against the floor. It was a sharp thing, the coffee table’s corner. All wood, metal, and glass. Fresh gouts of blood spewed from her head as she hit and sprawled out on the floor, face down.

Norman’s eyes widened as he watched her. She began to twitch and convulse. None of her movements seemed voluntary at all, just spastic spasms as if her brain were malfunctioning. Something bad had happened when she hit her head. He hadn’t meant to cause any real harm, only to teach her that good and perfect will of God, but it seemed a real number had been done on her. He had gone too far. Acted too rashly.

As she twitched and shook on the floor like a fish out of water, she shit herself. Feces spewed out of her with an abandon and freedom Norman had not known possible. It speckled her butt and the backs of her thighs and the calves of her legs as wet, spewing farts followed the debris, applauding loudly in the small room. He noticed only then that she was vomiting as well, a pool of grayish white gruel encircling her face.

And it stunk.

Norman was disgusted all at once. It still wasn’t registering with him just what had happened, what he’d done, only that her shit smelled like rotten eggs and her vomit like rancid meat.

It was awful.

She twitched a few more times, the turds slowing their exit from her backside, her retches void of fluids now. Then she went still. No movement. Nothing.

M-Margie? he asked with a stammer. It was beginning to dawn on him what had happened. It had seemed as though he hadn’t been there. Hadn’t been the one to cause it. It was almost as if he’d just walked in here off the street and found her this way.

Margie?

Nothing. Stillness.

He moved across the room to her and stooped down at her side. Norman thought he might have seen the slightest rise and fall of her back. Of her breathing.

Could she...is she still alive? he wondered in his clouded thoughts which were beginning to reach a chaotic speed.

But he couldn’t be sure. His mind was racing now, darting here and there. What would he do? What would he say? How would he explain this? He thought he should call an ambulance but immediately cast this off, because with an ambulance would come cops and cops would put him in jail. They didn’t care about shaved cunts—Jesus forgive him—and God’s will and they would put him in jail. And how was he supposed to lead God back into a godless world like his mother had always promised he would if he were in jail?

Then, the voice of God came to him.

You’ll explain nothing. You’ll say nothing of this. Take her out of here. Clean up the house. Dump her body.

Was God was really saying this to him? Could it be real?

He thought not initially, but as he listened, he became certain the voice speaking to him was the Almighty Himself. The same voice that had told him of his marital destiny with this woman. The same reasoning. The same assuredness.

It was God, alright.

Yes, Lord! he thought, still panicked but hopeful now. I’ll do as you ask!

Norman Reese looked down at Margie’s bloody and beshitted body and smiled. His loin’s appendage got even harder, aching and throbbing.

Jesus forgive me.

Chapter Two

Big Jim Dalton came into the station a little after nine that Friday morning. There were bags under his eyes and his skin was gray except over his cheekbones where it glowed in a pinkish hue. It had taken him two rather stout Bloody Marys to get his wheels turning properly that morning, but as they always did, they finally worked. After the drinks, he’d swished and gargled and swallowed half a bottle of Listerine to mask the fuel-like scent on his breath. These remedies, along with the mask of tomato-juice mix, left him confident—perhaps a bit overly so—that no one would notice the vodka on his breath. It wasn’t like he planned to stand close to anyone while speaking, and his first stop would be the coffee pot, further quarantining the smell of his vice, but he knew he’d have to be careful.

He was thirty-eight years old and had grown into a full six feet, weighing in at two hundred pounds. He wasn’t overweight, but his frame was large and solid, which had lent to the nickname Big Jim.

Morning, Chief, his dispatcher, Barbara Leaks, said as he shuffled across the lobby toward the department proper. There’s a message on your desk from Charlotte Johnson. I think you should take a look at it.

Great, he thought. Can’t even walk through the fucking door, can’t even get a cup of fucking coffee, and the shit starts.

He sighed to himself, but relayed none of his disdain to Barbara. She was a kindly—if foul-mouthed—black woman in her mid-forties, her dark hair salted in a few streaks and strands. Her eyes matched her hair, so darkly brown they were almost black. She was probably thirty pounds overweight, and she carried it poorly.

Any idea what it is? Jim asked as he punched the code into the keypad next to the door which led in from the lobby. It booped and beeped and there was a metallic snapping sound when the door unlocked and he stepped through. A second after it closed, he heard it snap back, locking them into the station.

The dispatcher also served as receptionist. Barbara had been speaking to him through the window in the lobby when he’d first come in, but was now shouting out the door at the back of her office. Jim made his way down the hall, passing his own office, and rounded into hers. She had the coffee maker in there and he meant to have a cup of the swill. It was always swill, but it was hot and thick and had plenty of caffeine.

She didn’t say much, Barbara said. Just that she needed to talk to you. I asked her if one of the other officers could help her, and she says no, gotta be you. I say okay, what’s the message? She says tell Big Jim to call me soon as possible. It’s about Margie. That’s all she said.

Margie? Jim pondered aloud. Did something happen to her?

How the fuck should I know? She ain’t say, Chief. Just said it was about Margie and to have you call her soon’s you got in. I done my part, shit’s on you now. Pardon my French.

Jim nodded and poured coffee from the flask into a mug which read #1 Chief on its side. As he did this, he tried to hide the amused smirk spreading on his face. Barbara was one of a kind, and while he wouldn’t let any of his officers speak so flippantly to him on the clock, he did let Barbara get away with it. She dealt firsthand with all the hell and shit coming through the office, and he figured she’d earned her cynicism.

He returned the flask to the warmer and blew gently over the steaming liquid. After several repeats of this ritual, he slurped a sip loudly from the rim. It